6 Blind men and the Elephant – the awakening

Part 1 was published last week; this is the second and final part of the story.

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The CIO struggling with disparate views of the team who were unable to visualise the big picture and decided to leave it that way with his team providing the glue that held all of it together; he felt the effort of getting everyone to the same page will inordinately delay the project. So he chugged along for another few months keeping watch on the big picture; progress was slow but nonetheless there. Soon time came to put together all the pieces, get the system tested not just technically but functionally before the training and go-live.

This was one of the critical projects for the enterprise and the CIO; it was important and necessary for everyone involved that the project succeeds. The business teams who had always lived on an island looked from their window and kept trying to refine their view of the picture; it never crossed their mind that there were interdependencies which impacted the whole when they fiddled with their parts. The Project Manager kept reminding them of the uncomfortable truth which they kept denying putting an ostrich to shame.

Escalations to respective business and function heads brought everyone to the table looking worried and making the right noises. Admonishments distributed around liberally and pulling up done was deemed adequate response to the crevice that was getting bigger by the day. Not convinced that this was going to work, working with the CEO, the CIO decided to use some creative analogy to explain to the group why they need to acknowledge the elephant in the room and look at the unified view before the beast tramples all of them.

The CIO asked each functional lead to present their process maps and changes sought to the system; he put all of them through the paces noting down points that were discordant with overall progress. As a clear picture emerged through the noting the real challenge was as visible to everyone as the elephant in the room which no one could any longer feign ignorance about. Acknowledgement of the creature was a starting point towards redemption and everyone looked up to the CIO for the proverbial silver bullet.

He highlighted the fact that everyone had agreed to the commercial-off-the-shelf-solution (COTS) as the right choice before the project began; everyone also acknowledged that the solution has best practices that are used by many peers and competitors globally. The team had willingly agreed to adopt the new normal and reality to improve their operational efficiency. Some of those team members were no longer in the implementation team but representation of the organization process cannot be person or location specific.

The CIO went on to demonstrate how individual views were being projected as departmental views to the detriment of the project. Ignorance arising out of lack of experience or alternative perspectives manifested in the dialogue that the users had with the development and implementation team; their unwillingness to look at possibilities was driving the change averse behavior. They were good people who were proficient in what they did; they had invested their lives in maintaining status quo as it worked for them.

The CEO recognized the malaise and applauded the fact that the CIO had escalated the issue which has plagued many other non-IT projects too. No one talked about it openly and it had almost become part of the culture of the enterprise. She faced the nervous group which had difficulty in accepting that now they can no longer live with their view of the elephant; the whole had been uncovered, it was discomforting. Some of the team leaders were enthused, the rest mortally scared with no real choices but to change.

She promised to stay on top of the situation and asked for all progress reports to be marked to her and attend all review meetings; she expressed her disappointment at the progress and timelines and asked the CIO to recast them with a stretch achievable target which he readily did. The teams accepted the eventuality and assured the CEO that they will collectively own and deliver the project. Many moons later the CIO was in the news for a successful deployment of a complex solution, a first in many ways in his chosen industry.

Do you have an elephant in your backyard ?

6 Blind men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan,

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant,

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation,

Might satisfy his mind.

So goes an old parable from a few centuries back which has many even older variations across countries with their cultural nuances thrown in. While the object of curiosity does not change, the number of people in the group does and so do their inferences. Conclusions derived too have varied by context of the narrator and the reader or listener though they all end up pointing to one key aspect of human behaviour, i.e. people jumping to conclusions based on their frame of reference and global ignorance.

Corporate world experiences elephants in the room, often leading to embarrassing and hilarious situations for those involved including instances where the elephant was never discovered. My friends have narrated many instances of the sum of parts being larger than the whole; differing frames of reference like the blind men in the fable have frustrated much intent to progress with incessant harping on their version of truth. Then off course there is the wise owl consultant who ends up painting a different animal farm.

The project was critical to the company impacting every function directly or indirectly. There weren’t any alternatives which is why it was a project that everyone agreed to unanimously. The CIO was happy that there was consistent alignment and endorsement of the project with hardly any resource constraints. Mood in the air was exuberant and success was perceived inevitable; everyone involved agreed that it could not have been done better with the transparency in decision making and setting expectations.

Few months into the project the CIO met with his peers to get feedback and inquire if he was missing anything real or perceived. Everyone had a fair view and appreciation for the flawless execution that had followed the project kick-off. Satisfied with the responses he forged ahead full steam; completing one phase and while moving to the next he hit some rough weather. With choppy seas and a pronounced roll, he again went back to the CXOs to check if course correction was required. What he discovered…

First stop Finance, he queried the CFO; everything is fine, it is a great financial accounting tool but… the indirect taxation model is not suitable and we would like to retain the old solution. Head of Supply Chain quipped that Sales & Distribution were good to go but… the planning part was not good enough and he would like to build a custom solution to meet the need. Manufacturing felt that their needs would be met at the basic level however… it did not address the stores and repairs current processes which would require additional solutions.

Marketing was non-committal in their response, master data needs to be fixed by someone before we can comment. Fortunately the Purchase team took to it like fish to water; they loved the solution which they believed will give them wings. Human Resources did not believe that they needed to change whatever they were doing; they were averse to change and closed. Fearing the worst he spoke to the IT team only to realize that the team was toiling away to keep everyone together moving in the same direction.

The disjointed and independent frames of reference portrayed a different view and plane; connecting the dots provided a picture that was far removed from reality. Everyone took a view based on what they saw and how it impacted them; there was no effort to stitch together a bigger or holistic picture. The original dream and expectation appeared a faint memory. Their views reflected a myopic vision in their risk-averse mindset and no one felt like challenging it. I know how to manage my part of the elephant.

The CIO realized the elephantine proportion of the problem where everyone in the functional teams saw a part of the animal they were exposed to and made preparations based on their conclusions. The IT team was left holding the portrait that the solution was expected to be. He contemplated different options and finally decided to leave the incomplete picture as is; he believed that he knew the elephant and how to tame it. After all this was not the first time he was in this situation.

And so these men of Indostan,

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion,

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

Was this the best option for the CIO ? What would you do ? To be continued…

Link to Part 2

The Corporate Social Media Network

The trigger has been the wilder than earlier predicted adoption of social media websites, applications and mobile apps by all age groups across geographies and social strata. Every new innovation, fad or me-too has caught the fancy of not just consumers, but also investors. After denial and prohibition came the acceptance within the enterprise and experiments on how to use it to the benefit of the company. Thus we see a new trend emerging that now has many players vying for attention; the corporatization of social media.

I am not referring to the numerous models that have been attempted to measure return on investment or to convert “Likes” into hard cash (fortunately not by selling personal details of customers). Many will point out a few popular success stories where a brand or product found exponential growth driven by social media campaigns; this number has not grown much in subsequent years. I am alluding to the attempt by companies to setup internal portals and sites that mimic behavior of the popular social media sites.

CXOs blessed this and agreed that while we prevent our employees from the internet on corporate devices let us give them a way to spend their energy on similar sites internally with each other. Let them channelize their time towards being more productive. CIOs with help from vendors cloned most of the functionality and put it on the intranet and waited for employees to start using it. Some did, they posted stuff here and there and then went away very quickly. How can I put up my private life on display inside the company ?

Managers attempted to create collaboration use cases; success was measured by number of people active or the number of posts. Structures around groups helped them find behavioral and psychological insights. Soon these became case studies and best practices to be touted by vendors and consultants. Within boundaries these worked adding to the momentum which forced almost every respectable CXO to leniency. All along employees continued to put on display their private lives on non-corporate social media via their BYOD smartphones.

Is corporate social media really a tool that can transform the way enterprises and employees collaborate ? Can it imitate the viral effect seen in private lives ? If we discount the generation X/Y who are just entering the workforce, are the 30 and 40 something employees going to embrace getting on internal social media to post their feelings and share brainwaves ? In a hypercompetitive and paranoid professional world, will the existence of a platform with adequate catalysts be the trigger that breaks the barriers ?

Social media fatigue is already setting in; the multitude of options from 140 characters to pin boards and friendly sites only confuses rather than compartmentalize the use. People realize the time demands in an ever connected world which expects instant responses to emails, tweets, SMS, chat messages, posts and whatever mode of socializing they engage in. Souring relationships due to or because of the face down thumb happy posture is changing the way we engage with each other. Peer pressure keeps some going, the rest follow the herd.

Coming back to corporate social media, there are opportunities if used well; any foray requires capturing the ethos of the company, department or group which will determine the character of the site and engagement. It requires a team of enthusiastic believers who infect everyone they come in contact with their exuberance and create an urge to try. The team needs no boundaries or censorship for engagement; let there be self-imposed discipline on what the group is willing to accept. Monitor you may, don’t be the police.

In a recent interview a journalist asked me the question “What is the future of corporate social media ?” I believe that there will be pockets of excellence from which people will learn only to fail until they are able to create the cultural ecosystem in which sharing can thrive without fear of retribution or rebuke. We need freedom to communicate, disagree, and be ourselves the way we are outside the workplace. Leaders and Managers have to walk this talk for it to work. Until then there will be case studies that we read and wonder why it does not work for us !

Making it stick

An intense debate was on, on how we ensure team alignment across the different organizational units that form a workgroup within an enterprise. As the discussion moved towards pinning responsibility (read blame) when things go wrong, there was a palpable sense of unease across the group; specifically the team that manages the vendor relationships and is expected to deliver and monitor the service.


The discussion had started when one of the stakeholders had raised the issue of inter-dependency across other teams and his ability to influence how the team is rated during the review and appraisal. It is true that all of us are no longer islands with any connection to others. We use services from within and outside and similarly provide it directly or indirectly to internal and external customers. The work subdivided into interrelated tasks when performed in unison lead to a positive outcome (in most cases).

Adversarial attitude is the result when we are not satisfied with the result or our perception of the effort put in by others. The conventional solution is to create Service Level Agreements, cross-linked KRAs (Key Result Areas). Review meetings are often heated while everyone trying to pin the “blame” on the other. Such meetings are rarely productive and highlight the gap resulting in the “you” versus “us” stance. The meeting was headed for a showdown that would have been messy for everyone with skeletons tumbling out of the proverbial closet.

It was an eye opener remark from one of the participants in the meeting that had everyone hushed and staring at the person who uttered the words “But are we are all not on the same side of the table ?”. Could anyone have disagreed to such a profound insight ? Speechless everyone exchanged glances feeling generally uncomfortable without acknowledging the cause.

The acknowledgement of the fact that we all are working towards the same objective is a starting point not just for any collaborative endeavour, but for teams within the organization. Everyone contributes and brings a skill to the table that matters, even if in a small way. When we are in a challenged situation, we know that the best recovery strategy is to help the other overcome the challenge and not berate the lack of skill or achievement.

Great teamwork is always a result of shared goal and common objective; the acknowledgement of complementary skills within the team provides a framework that nurtures healthy collaboration and focus on what matters, i.e. the result, without compromising the quality of team spirit. Keeping this as the foundation of review helps ensure better outcomes. It is indeed difficult to sustain such a mindset when one is at the receiving end.

The hierarchical leader of the team and the CIO in this case has to play the role of setting expectations and resolve confrontations and conflict which will always be there. The matrix organizations of today are necessary; we have to learn to live in the rain.